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February 2004
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Still Alice, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Ambition and Success
Loss of Identity
Illness, Marriage, and Family
Alzheimer’s, Quality of Life, and Happiness
Summary
Analysis
Ever since their visit to Stephanie, John struggles with seeing Alice take her medication and has stopped asking her for help finding things when he misplaces them. Alice wonders if this is because he’s “too embarrassed to ask for help from an Alzheimer’s patient” and listens to him search for whatever he’s lost.
Alice has always been the one John turns to for help when he loses things, so the fact that he now stubbornly refuses to ask for her help chips away a little at her identity as his wife. It makes her self-conscious, but still she chooses not to help him, perhaps as an unconscious means of punishing him for not treating her like herself.
Themes
John finally finds what he’s looking for and asks Alice if she’s ready to go. He has agreed to walk with her to work every morning because she told him she was afraid of getting lost again. The real reason, however, is that “she simply wanted that time back with him.” However, they do not walk next to each other and don’t talk much.
Alice and John stop at Jerri’s, a well-loved café near Harvard Square. Alice orders coffee, but John turns to her and tells her she doesn’t like coffee before telling the barista to get Alice a tea with lemon. Alice insists on coffee and John doesn’t argue, but when they leave the café, he asks her if she likes it. Alice doesn’t like it’s “acrid and unpleasant” taste but tells John it is “wonderful.” Alice sips at the coffee until she gets to her office and can throw it away.
Like in the office with the genetic counselor, John tries to take control of this situation by reminding Alice she doesn’t like coffee and trying to order for her. This subtly hurts Alice’s pride, which is why she insists on getting the coffee even though John insists she doesn’t like it. Furthermore, her refusal to admit that she forgot that she doesn’t like coffee prevents her from admitting it tastes terrible because, again, she is not ready to appear incapable in John’s eyes.
Themes
In her office, Alice reads an email from Anna rescheduling a dinner they planned to have together. Alice struggles to think of how to reply until her phone rings. Alice believes it is Anna calling her, but it is actually Lydia, who is excited to tell her about part she just got in a play. Lydia asks if Alice and John can come see it, but she’s talking quickly and Alice struggles to keep up even after she stops. In fact, Alice has been struggling to understand what people are saying without “the aid of visual cues.” Misconstruing Alice’s silence as an effort to find an excuse not to go, Lydia becomes angry and ends the call.
Just like when Lydia got mad at Alice for repeating a question during their dinner in Los Angeles, Alice’s symptoms are confused with long-standing issues between Lydia and Alice. In this situation, Lydia believes it’s only natural that Alice would try to find a way out of having to see her act because she’s done so in the past, so Lydia doesn’t see Alice’s silence as unusual. This highlights just how little faith Lydia has that Alice truly values her.
Themes
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Alice regrets that Lydia hung up so quickly because what she wanted to say is that she had to check with John and be sure he could go. Since her diagnosis, Alice has been afraid to go far away from home without John to help her. So, while she wanted to see the play, she is “at the mercy of John’s availability.” Alice considers calling Lydia back, but thinks better of it and tries, unsuccessfully, to work. Alice doesn’t “have time for Alzheimer’s today.”
The fact that Alice considers herself “at the mercy of John’s availability” shows just how much things have changed in such a short time. Alice spent most of the summer traveling away from home, so this fear of traveling alone shows how much of her independence has already been surrendered to her disease. Still, Alice sees the necessity of life going on as usual for as long as she can, and her busy lifestyle leaves little time for her to struggle with symptoms of Alzheimer’s.
Themes
Alice still goes on runs, but it’s becoming “less and less effective at clearing her thoughts.” Alice is preoccupied with thoughts about what she should be doing to be healthier but knows that, no matter what, “her functioning w[ill] deteriorate” more and more, leaving her unable to continue working at Harvard. She asks herself who she actually is, “if she [isn’t] a Harvard psychology professor.”
There is nothing Alice can do to completely stop her Alzheimer’s from progressing, and one of the many cruelties of this situation is that she is aware that it means she’ll lose her identity to a disease. More importantly, it means she will have to be the one who calls it quits on certain elements of her personality. This is particularly true of her identity as a Harvard professor: due to her tenure, she cannot be fired, so she will have to be the one to give up her position before her symptoms prevent her from being a good teacher.
Themes
Alice also wonders if she should spend every available moment with her kids and how she is going to tell them there’s a 50 percent chance they’re going to develop Alzheimer’s too. Alice also worries about John and how much time he could devote to her without losing his own career because, as she knows, it’s possible that she will live for decades, but will be entirely dependent on someone else to help her get dressed, eat, and even clean her. She worries she’ll be such a burden that her kids will be relieved when she does die.
Alzheimer’s will also have a profound impact on Alice’s identity as a wife and mother, transforming her from a capable and responsible leader of the family into a burden that they will have to care for. More importantly, Alice fears the resentment her family might feel for her when she does become entirely dependent on them. This shows that Alice is starting to struggle with her sense of self-worth.
Themes
Alice briefly stops at a church even though she’s not religious and thinks of who she should turn to for advice. She decides to go home to John but is “unarmed for the attack she faced when she walked through the door.” John is upset with her because they were supposed to have dinner with friends. Alice can smell “booze on his breath” and tells him that she forgot about the dinner, blaming Alzheimer’s. John insists that she must always carry her phone with her so he can find her if needed.
John’s anger at Alice for not having her phone with her reveals his own latent fears of what life is going to be like with her as her symptoms worsen. However, it also further deteriorates Alice’s sense of independence because what he’s insinuating is that she can’t be trusted to go places by herself anymore.
Themes
John walks away and sits on the living room couch, but Alice follows him. She sits on his lap and tells him that she’s “so sorry [she has] this” and hates to think of how much worse it will get. She wipes away his tears and tells him she “can barely breathe” when she thinks about forgetting him, but they need to talk about what’s going to happen. John downs the rest of his drink and tells her, “I don’t know if I can.”
Alice is trying to get closer to John and to have a real conversation with him in which they directly address the problems they will face in the near future. It is clear that Alice loves John deeply, but he still is unable to rise to the challenge in the way she needs him to, instead saying he is unsure in his ability to talk honestly with her about this.
Themes
